1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automatic accompaniment apparatus, particularly to automatic accompaniment apparatus having an automatic accompaniment function of various insert patterns such as an introduction pattern, a fill-in pattern, and an ending pattern, in addition to a basic pattern.
2. Description of the Related Art
Normally, an automatic accompaniment apparatus of an electronic musical instrument obtains accompaniment tones on the basis of accompaniment pattern data prepared in advance. Some conventional automatic accompaniment apparatus have a function capable of inserting various patterns such as an introduction pattern, a fill-in pattern, and an ending pattern, in addition to a basic pattern as accompaniment pattern data.
The introduction pattern is an accompaniment pattern for an introduction part which is played before the play of the basic pattern as a main theme of a music piece. When insertion of the introduction pattern is instructed, the play of the basic pattern is started after the introduction pattern is played. The fill-in pattern is an accompaniment pattern that fills a blank part or the like of a melody line. The ending pattern is an accompaniment pattern which is inserted at the end of a music piece. When insertion of the ending pattern is instructed, automatic accompaniment play is automatically stopped after completion of the play of the ending pattern.
In an electronic musical instrument which comprises an automatic accompaniment apparatus having various accompaniment patterns, the player often manually plays along with the automatic accompaniment tones. For example, when the basic pattern is about to start upon completion of the play of the introduction pattern or the fill-in pattern, the player may start a keyboard play, or may quit the keyboard play simultaneously with the end of the play of the ending pattern.
However, in the conventional automatic accompaniment apparatus, the introduction, fill-in, and ending insert patterns have different numbers of bars included in their accompaniment pattern data in units of rhythm styles such as waltz, rock, and tango. For this reason, when the player does not remember the numbers of bars of such patterns in units of rhythm styles, he or she cannot often determine the start/end timing of a manual play upon completion of the accompaniment pattern.
It is an object of the present invention to allow the player to make a smooth manual play along with automatic accompaniment tones of a given insert pattern even when he or she does not remember the number of bars of that insert pattern of a selected rhythm style.
An automatic accompaniment apparatus according to the present invention having a function of making an automatic accompaniment play of basic patterns and insert patterns prepared for each rhythm style, comprises instruction means for selecting a desired insert pattern and giving instructions to play the selected insert pattern, and display means for displaying the number of bars of the selected insert pattern in playing the selected insert pattern.
Preferably, the apparatus further comprises count-down means for counting down the displayed number of bars along with progress of the play of the selected insert pattern.
According to the present invention with the above arrangement, when a play of a desired insert pattern is instructed, since the number of bars of the selected insert pattern is displayed, the player can easily determine the end timing of that insert pattern and can easily enjoy a manual play along with the accompaniment tones even when he or she does not remember the numbers of bars of insert patterns, which are different in units of rhythm styles.
Also, according to another feature of the present invention, since the displayed number of bars is counted down along with progress of the play of the insert pattern, the degree of progress of the insert pattern and its end timing can be simply presented to the player.